Page 45 of The Inmate
Except how? Natalie doesn’t like me. I don’t know how to change that. I don’t even understand why she doesn’t like me. It’s not like I told anyone her secret. Well, I did tell you, but you’re not going to tell anybody about it.
Maybe she’s angry with me because I knocked into her turtle figurine and it broke. Maybe I should buy her a new one. Except somehow I don’t think that’s it. She seemed mad at me before that happened.
I get so frustrated sometimes. Why is it so hard for me to make friends? It’s so easy for other people. When I watch Natalie and Kim engaging in a conversation together, they have this great rapport and I get so jealous. I keep trying, but it never works. You know this isn’t the first time someone has hated me for no reason. It’s happened more times than I can count.
I want to fix it. I’ve got to find a way to fix it. I’m smart. I can figure this out somehow if I think hard enough. If you have any ideas though, I’d love to hear them.
Sincerely,
Dawn Schiff
ChapterTwenty-Four
PRESENT DAY
NATALIE
As soon asDetective Santoro leaves, I scour the internet for information about Dawn.
It’s breaking news. Only a couple of stories have popped up, and those have minimal information. She was discovered in a patch of woods in Cohasset—another town about a twenty-minute drive down the South Shore—partially buried in the dirt. There’s little other information available, although I bet more will surface as the day goes on.
I consider calling out sick from work, but I finally decide it’s better to go in. After all, people at work might have more information than I do. And the truth is, I want some answers.
How could that detective think I was bullying Dawn? How could anyone think that? I’m not that kind of person. I wasniceto her. I even tried to be her friend, for what it was worth.
But obviously, I must’ve done something to make people think I was bullying her.Multiplepeople told him that. And Dawn herself wrote about it in a bunch of emails to a friend. Which has made me a suspect in her murder.
I can’t believe she thought that about me. And I’d really like to know who else said that about me. And who was thisfriend? I’m shocked to discover Dawn had a friend she felt close enough with to be telling them her intimate secrets.
Apparently though, I wasn’t the worst of her problems. Someone else hated her. Someone else hated her enough to beat her to death with a blunt object.
What if it was the alleged friend? The one she was emailing about me. God knows, Dawn had a tendency to get on people’s nerves. Maybe her friend couldn’t take it anymore and decided to…
God, I can’t stop thinking about what someone did to her.
When I get to the office, I head straight to my cubicle. I need to stop thinking about this and lose myself in my work. What happened to Dawn is horrible, but it isn’t my fault. And thanks to my wonderful boyfriend, who from now on I will be completely exclusive with, I have an alibi. So Detective Santoro can think whatever he wants—I’m untouchable.
Except when I get to my cubicle, I stop short.
Two days ago, I came to work and there was a turtle figurine on my desk. Yesterday, I threw it in the garbage. I remember doing it. I didn’t want to look at that thing ever again.
Yet now it’s somehow back on my desk.
I am as terrified as anyone could possibly be of a turtle figurine that’s three inches long. I threw that damn thing in the garbage, and yet somehow, against all reason, it’sback. I can’t stop staring at it, with its black glassy eyes and shiny green shell.
What. The. Hell.
Okay, I need to calm down. Maybe the janitors did it. Maybe they saw the turtle in my garbage when they were emptying it and assumed it had fallen in there by mistake. And they thought they were saving it for me.
It’s possible.
Anyway, I am getting rid of this thing once and for all. There aren’t going to be any janitor mishaps this time.
I snatch the turtle from my desk. I clutch it in my right hand as the little arms and legs dig into my palm. And I march over to the break room, where I toss it directly in the communal trash. And by “toss,” I mean that I hurl it in there with all my might, so that it makes a loud thump as it hits the bottom of the trash barrel. By lunchtime, that turtle will be buried in garbage.
I’ll never see it again.
I’m nearly back to my cubicle when the phone on my desk starts ringing. Usually, I screen calls. But I’m off my game right now, so I snatch up the phone without thinking. A deep voice booms in my ear: “Is this Natalie Farrell?”
